Catching up on Life - Night 67

In accordance with my Sunday Wellington tradition, I took a hike through Belmont Park in the morning. Up old Coach Road and straight through to the airstrip and the old weaponry magazines, my path wound through numerous farm fields and I spent most of the time dodging cow pies and curious sheep. Interestingly, during the second World War, the area was used as an ammunition storage area, the magazines are spread rather haphazardly over the hill, designed to look like randomly placed sheep sheds from the air. At the top of the saddle, one could see all the way to Kapiti Island and the west coast. Wellington is known for its fierce winds and today was the worst I’ve experienced yet. At the top of the park it was blowing

Tasman Sea in the Background

off the Tasman Sea so hard that you literally couldn’t look to the west without your eyes immediately tearing up. Exactly like sticking your head out of a vehicle cruising down the highway.

I returned to the house around 1pm and spent the rest of my day mired in domestic chores; washing clothes, cleaning my room, weeding the garden, returning emails and helping Lauren do the grocery shopping. This is another benefit of being on such a lengthy trip, as I don’t feel the least bit bad for ‘wasting’ a day doing mundane, real life things.

What I Learned Today: The Pak n Save supermarket has a self scan shopping system like none other I’ve ever seen. If you like, when entering the store you can grab a hand held barcode scanner gun to take with your while you shop. You simply scan the items you place in your cart and when you get to the end the clerk just reads off your amount from the gun and that is what you owe. In essence, they trust that you’ve scanned everything in your cart. As an anti-shop lifting method you might be subject to a random rescan of all your items. To use this service you must first sign up for a special account and they track your record of honesty. If you fail (and by fail I mean forget to scan an item) a few times you are more likely to be rescanned than if you have a perfect record. This is a great service for those of us purchasing huge amounts of food on a set budget as you can monitor your total along the way.

written by

exumenius on December 16, 2007 from Wellington, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

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